June 20, 2013

Tough Talk

Over the weekend we were informed that the
music teacher in our school district died suddenly. She taught both the boys,
since she was a shared teacher between the schools. The boys heard a few rumors
as to what happened to her from the neighborhood kids but nothing concrete. The other night I found out she took her own life. Her husband found her in the basement
of their house. She was 42 and had 3 young children.

I never met her but the boys only had nice things to say about about her. I'm so sad for her family
and so sad that she didn't (or couldn't) ask for help before it was too
late.

But the mom in me is mad. Mad that she did this to her family and mad that she did this to our school district and the hundreds of kids she taught. We're the ones left trying to help our young children understand the unexplainable.

My husband and I sat the boys down and told them the truth about what happened. I believe in telling them the truth instead of trying to sugar coat everything. Plus, with a 6th grader, it's only a matter of time before he would start hearing rumors about it. We did not go into detail about how she did it but more of the why someone might do it, even though we will never know. I wanted them to know that it's okay to be sad about it and that we will talk about it as much or as little as they want. They both asked a couple of questions and we had an honest discussion. We also let them know that no matter what the problem may be or how impossible they may think the problem is, we want them to come talk to us - anytime, anywhere - and we'll figure it out together.